Corrupt director presses flesh in parliament

Cascade Coal director John McGuigan (left) after a visit to NSW parliament house on Thursday.
Photo: Michaela Whitbourn

by
Michaela Whitbourn

Corrupt businessman
John McGuigan
was spotted in the NSW parliament on Thursday, prompting speculation he is lobbying MPs over a controversial coal project.

Mr McGuigan is a director of Cascade Coal, a company which owns a coal exploration licence over a rural property owned by corrupt former NSW Labor minister
Eddie Obeid
and his family.

He left the NSW Parliament House cafe at 11.45 am on Thursday.

On July 31, the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption found Mr McGuigan and four of his business associates – coal mogul
Travers Duncan
, RAMS Home Loans founder
John Kinghorn
, investment banker
Richard Poole
and businessman John Atkinson – acted corruptly by concealing the Obeids’ involvement in the coal tenement.

Asked if NSW Premier Barry O’Farrell had met with Mr McGuigan on Thursday, a spokesman said: “I can’t answer for the entire government - all I can I say is he wasn’t meeting the Premier."

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A spokeswoman for the Labor Opposition said she was not aware of any Labor MPs meeting Mr McGuigan on Thursday. Comment is also being sought from crossbench MPs from the Greens, Christian Democrats and Shooters and Fishers Party.

Mr Kinghorn and Mr McGuigan wrote an open letter to state MPs in March this year urging them to support Cascade Coal’s plans for a mine over the Obeids’ farm at Mount Penny in the Bylong Valley near Mudgee.

“It is in the best interests of the state to ensure that the Mt Penny mine is funded and developed, bringing hundreds of millions of dollars to the state," the men wrote.

Mr Obeid’s son, Moses, gave evidence at ICAC that approval for a mine would increase the value of his family’s 9.3 per cent stake in Cascade Coal by up to $100 million.

“I hope it’s worth more," Moses Obeid said in February.

ICAC will release a report later this year making recommendations to the government about Cascade Coal’s exploration licence.

Clair Cameron, a director of FTI Consulting, a public relations firm which acts for Cascade Coal and its directors, said: “I don’t have any comment for you on this other than no one from FTI has been up at Parliament House today."